OKLAHOMA CITY – Coming off one of the best all-around years in the program history, the Evangels held their annual Esports Awards banquet on Friday afternoon.
Over the course of the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 seasons, the Evangels captured a pair of NACE Varsity Plus East 4 Season Championships in Rocket League as well as winning the East 4 Tournament Championship in the fall while the Overwatch 2 team captured both the regular season and tournament titles in the East 6 division in the spring.
For the Rocket League awards, Jadon Maxwell (Brainz) was named the Team MVP for both seasons while Maxwell, Javier Cerrillo Soto (Cl0ver) and Luis Reyes (S0l) finished in a three-way tie for the Best Teammate award.
For Overwatch 2, the Team MVP awards went to Lantis Wolfe (Bug) for the fall season while Hayden Linville (Golden) garnered the accolade during MACU's championship run in the spring. For the Best Teammate honors, James Ramey (Crewdog) received the fall honor while Rushell Herrera (SpicyGhost) received the spring accolade.
Having the biggest turnaround between the fall and spring was the brand new Valorant team that was in its first year as a program. After going 1-8 competing in the NECC in the fall, the Evangels made some huge additions in the spring while transitioning to the NACE Varsity Plus West-Central 2 division, posting a 5-1 regular season record before advancing all the way to the championship match to finish the year with a 6-2 overall record.
Wolfe (Mantis) was tabbed as the Team MVP in the fall while newcomer Lucas Webb (McFlurried14) was tabbed as the MVP for the spring campaign. For the Best Teammate awards, Myles Garcia (NoBueno) was picked as the fall honoree while Joshua Waller (Okghost86) earned the spring accolade.
The League of Legends team also saw dramatic improvement from the fall season to the spring. The Evangels finished the fall season with a 1-9 record overall and an 0-7 mark in NECC play, but with the transition to the NACE Varsity Plus West-Central 2 division in the spring, finishing the semester with a 4-4 overall record and went 3-3 in conference play.
Selected as the Team MVP for both seasons was Team Captain John Gia (Yohon) while the honorees for Best Teammate were Enzo Nogue (Noguetti) in the fall and Alanna Winston (Airyn) during the spring season.
The Super Smash Bros. team had its best year in program history as the Evangels Kings team posted a strong 6-3 overall record in the fall, the winningest season in program history while going 5-2 in NACE play while the Knights squad went 2-6 overall and 2-5 in NACE competition. The Evangels only ran one squad during the spring season, finishing the semester with a 3-4 overall mark and a 3-3 record in NACE regular season play. The MVP of the fall semester was Malcolm Roberts while Jack Search was tabbed as the MVP for the spring campaign. There was a three-way tie for the Best Teammate Award with Elijah Bates, Austin Kyle and James Orquiz garnering the honor.
The MACU Esports team also held some individual tournaments as Roberts was victorious in the fall Super Smash Bros. Tournament while Search took home gold in the spring SSBU tourney. Roberts was also the winner of the program's fall Pong Tournament.
On-top of honoring its 2024-25 award winners, the Esports program also held a ring ceremony for its 2023-24 championship teams, which included the Rocket League team that won the Fall 2023 NACE Starleague Varsity Plus East 4 regular season and tournament championship as well as the Overwatch 2 squad that captured the Spring 2024 Varsity Plus West-Central 2 season and tourney titles.
